First time Nettle forage!

Over the past couple days, while on walks with Kai, I’ve seen purple plants scattered in the lawn. My eyes have caught them randomly on each walk, but I hadn’t stopped to look closer or ponder what they were. They felt familiar.

I have definitely seen them before.

There are lots in the garden, and a patch by the house. I have been observing these plants, thinking “they look so vibrant & strong, there must be a medicinal use for them!”

After consulting Uncle Google, I learned that the purple plants are Purple Dead Nettle and the leafy green ones are Stinging Nettle.

I’ve heard lots about stinging nettle’s medicinal benefits & I’ve defs been stung before, but until today, I hadn’t ever had a full interaction with it.

This post isn’t going to describe identification, there are many internet articles/pix for that. One thing I will say, is that the stinging nettle lookalikes are also edible nettles, so that makes foraging it way more chill 😎

Sometimes when there is a toxic lookalike to what I'm foraging (more the mushroom game), I’m like ..I’ll just eat something else..

So yeah, all edible

All good

After some more research, and to my pleasant surprise finding out that the purple plant I’ve been seeing is also an edible nettle, I grabbed my scissors, gloves & harvest basket.

So pretty. I had muchfun harvesting.

Nature is so abundant! Every time.. I’m just blown away

Although the purple dead nettle can be eaten raw, I decided to blanch it w/ the stinging nettle b/c, as you can see, they shared the same basket & I didn’t want to risk any stinging hairs getting mixed into the purple.

This may be a little over cautious, but it was my first time so gimme a break ;)

Blanched the nettles, drained & rinsed w/ cold water, then put them on pizza!

Another one of my pizza toppings was dehydrated kohlrabi. I poured boiling water over the dried kohlrabi pieces & put a lid on the bowl. They sat for a while, rehydrating, then I drained, (probably should have rinsed here, but forgot) then baked them in the oven w/ spices to crisp them up before topping them on the 'za.

Nettle kohlrabi pizza, ha!

It was great! The nettle has beautiful flavour, esp. the purple!

One point I’d like to make is that even after blanching the stinging nettle, you will still see the hairs.

Although, from what I read, I trusted it was safe to eat after blanching, I still felt nervous. I barely grazed a nettle in the field the other day & it stung my ankle instantly so yeah.. I was a little nervous to put the still-hairy plant in my mouth..

I rubbed it on my lip first to make sure & when it didn’t sting, I chopped the nettles & sprinkled them atop the pizza.

Yum

This has been a most enjoyable & inspiring experience. There is a lot of nettle on the property so my plan is to harvest the leafy young shoots and dry them for tea.

Excited to eat more lawn weeds.

Messages from Nettle:

- Everything you need is already here

- Nature is ever-flowing

Temperatures the past 2-3 nights have been around 0 degrees. We have been babying our seedlings in the unheated nursery. Meanwhile, nettles are shooting up everywhere outside, looking luscious as, getting hit by frost, shaking off the snow like nada.

Just saying.. nature does it best

It can be easier

It can be more passive

Jakoby made a soil block mix today, which we will also be using for our seed trays. Peat moss, compost, perlite & a bunch of other yummy ingredients.

We made our own soil mix at our first garden in Norma & Steve’s backyard. It was amazing, the plants loved it & so did we. When we grew into the Neufeld-Dick’s farm, our production increased, and we found buying soil mix was the most realistic strategy for the location.

Now, however, we have the time & space to dedicate to soil block mix again, while still keeping it productive 🙌

This new farm really is a mix of our two previous gardens. Productive & whimsical. It can be both, why not?

Feels good

Anyways, time to take Kai out for a sesh.

Oh ya, stinging nettle is great for dogs too!

🥳🥳🥳

Love

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Nettle Harvest

PART 2

(one week later)

I am in love with Stinging Nettle

I love how abundantly it grows

I love eating it

Yesterday, we harvested a bunch for tea. We stripped all the leaves from the stems (which was so easy btw.. like some plants’ leaves don’t pull away from the stem easily & you end up breaking the cutting apart blah blah blah.. but the stinging nettle leaves almost like ‘popped’ off the stem. amazing.) So yeah, put all the leaves into our herb drying rack.

I was then left with all the stems, and although they would have made exceptional compost, I decided to quick pickle them!

The idea of a quick pickle or a nettle ferment had been brewing in my mind for a few days. I did a little research, and a quick pickle seemed easy enough so I was like k let’s giver a whirl.

This is the recipe I used: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-quick-pickle-any-vegetable-233882

So simple. So fun

Some of the extra shoots were blanched and then added to dinner.

No spices, no oil.

Nothing fancy, just some boiled lawn weeds.

This morning, I googled “can you eat stinging nettle every day? and how much?”. It’s easy to incorporate into meals & tastes delicious so I’d like to just keep eating until it has all gone to flower.

There wasn’t much RDA advice on google for fresh stinging nettle. It was all about the dried roots & teas for medicinal purposes.. which do have RDAs, so be sure to check that out if you’re using it medicinally.

From my research, and a bit of logical reason.. it seems that stinging nettle, eaten fresh as a spinach substitute, can be eaten every day in moderate amounts. People have been living off this stuff since the beginning of time & we’re all still here so it’s probs okay.

If you start getting belly or head aches, then take a break. 

Simple.

Okay so quick pickles are chilling in the fridge for another day, tea is drying, and the nettle is still pumping. I will be sure to keep y’all updated on how they all do!

As always, thank you for taking time to read this 🙏 If you wish to share your fav nettle recipe, or have questions or tips, please leave a comment below!

Happy foraging 🌱

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